The central bank boss admitted in a speech to business leaders in Davos last month that the policy linking interest rates to unemployment needed to ”evolve” - signalling that this would begin at its quarterly inflation report today.

Under the guidance, the Bank has said it will not consider a hike in rates from the current low of 0.5% until the rate of joblessness has fallen to 7%, but this looks likely to be achieved much more quickly than previously thought as the recovery speeds up.

MILLIONS MORE TO BE OFFERED STATINS

Millions more people in the UK could be prescribed cholesterol-lowering statins in a bid to prevent more cases of heart disease, heart attacks and strokes.

In draft guidance to the NHS, which is subject to consultation, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has cut the threshold in half for when doctors should consider prescribing the drugs.

Statins are taken by as many as seven million people in the UK but this could rise dramatically, with experts predicting as many as five million more may have them prescribed.

NHS BOSS: REFORM OR FACE £30BN BILL

The outgoing head of the NHS has said hospitals will have to close and services will be centralised to improve patient care.

Sir David Nicholson called for a radical reorganisation of health services so a smaller number of larger hospitals offer most major surgery while smaller hospitals scale back the care they provide.

In an article in the Daily Telegraph, he warned that the NHS could face a £30 billion funding shortfall in seven years unless it changes the way it provides services.

’QUESTION MARK’ OVER NHS SAVINGS

It is unclear what billions of pounds of NHS savings have been spent on, MPs have said.

While the NHS has managed to create substantial “efficiency savings” in recent years, these have come from easy areas such as cutting management costs and freezing pay and are under threat in the future, the Health Committee said.

The NHS was told by the Government in 2009 it must deliver up to £20 billion of efficiency savings by 2014/15 while maintaining or improving the quality of patient services. The Department of Health has said every penny saved will be reinvested in patient care.

’BANNED’ DOG MAULED BABY TO DEATH

A pit bull terrier that mauled to death an 11-month-old girl was a banned dangerous dog, police said.

Ava-Jayne Marie Corless was asleep in bed at a house in Blackburn on Monday night when she was savaged by the animal.

Police and ambulance staff attempted to resuscitate her at the address in Emily Street but she was pronounced dead at Royal Blackburn Hospital a short time later.

COALITION ’NEEDS POLICY ROW RULES’

David Cameron and Nick Clegg must draw up rules to stop public splits on Government policy after a spate of clashes, peers have warned.

A convention that means all ministers must defend official plans or quit - known as collective responsibility - has been repeatedly breached since the last general election, the House of Lords Constitution Committee said.

Although disagreements are inevitable in a coalition, ministers must reach a collective view “wherever possible” because MPs must be able to hold the Government to account, the Constitutional Implications of Coalition Government report said.

’BEDROOM TAX’ ERROR HITS THOUSANDS

The Government has been accused of understating the number of council tenants who have been wrongly hit by the so-called “bedroom tax” changes to housing benefit.

Labour said local authority data showed that, as a result of a loophole in the legislation, at least 16,000 households had wrongly had their benefit cut, while the true figure could be closer to 50,000.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has previously told MPs that between 3,000 and 5,000 tenants were thought to have been affected by the error.

WELBY URGES CHURCH ’CULTURE CHANGE’

The Archbishop of Canterbury will issue a plea today for the Church of England to “challenge fear” within its ranks as new legislation to introduce women bishops looks on course to gain approval later this year.

The Most Rev Justin Welby is due to say there needs to be a “cultural change” in the life of the Church to build love and trust between opposing groups.

“We have agreed and God willing we follow this through over the next few months until it is part of an agreed measure, that we will ordain women as bishops,” he will say in his presidential address to the General Synod.

MET ’BETRAYED PLEBGATE ROW POLICE’

A former policeman at the centre of the “plebgate” row has said officers on duty at the gates of Downing Street have been “betrayed” by their Met bosses.

Ian Richardson said that while he maintained that Andrew Mitchell called officers “f***ing plebs” and was “officious and rude”, he believed he should not have lost his job as chief whip over a “quirky incident that should have blown over”.

Mr Mitchell was accused of making the comment after police refused to let him cycle through the main gates of Downing Street, instead asking him to use a side gate.